Interregnum SSG 2point99999
by rabbit and -v-Jinx-v
Summary: Slytherin Study Group 2.99999...A brief interlude between catastrophes. Spoilers for HalfBlood Prince!
1. Chapter 1

**rabbit and Jinx have read Book 6.**

**If you have not read Book 6, turn back NOW.**

**RIGHT NOW, WE REALLY MEAN IT.**

_rabbit:_ "...so."

_Jinx:_ "mmhm..."

_rabbit:_ "...well..."

_Jinx_: "Look at the darling boys. Aren't they just so precious? They actually think that just because one's in Azkaban and the other's on his way back to Hell, that somehow they might escape the _Ongoing Mayhem With Ovine Misadventures_..."

_rabbit:_ "Yeah, but James and Sirius got themselves **_Dead_** and it didn't save **_them_**..."

_Both:_ "**_MWAH_**-ha-ha-ha_-haaaa!_"

**Interregnum (SSG 2.999999...)**

A very tall and precarious stack of books drifted through the doorway marked **_Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here_**, and wavered painstakingly across the candlelit dormitory room.

The tomes' jagged shadow fell across the letter Lucius Malfoy was writing to **_Father_** and he looked up crossly at his fellow Prefect as Severus Snape came staggering along behind the bookstack. The struggling swot had another bushel 's-worth of texts clutched in his arms, his wand clenched in his teeth, and what looked like a Flaming Finch clinging onto the shoulderstrap of one of several overcrammed bookbags.

When the roving reference section had been crammed precariously into the storage space (formerly the bed of one unbearably chatty little Hugh Fortinbras, who had lasted just one term rooming with _Malfoy and Minions_ before judiciously fleeing for his life), the aspiring alchemist collapsed gratefully onto his own bed, panting as if he'd just run from Marathon.

Lucius carried on with his epistle. When he had finished, and signed it with a flourish, he sealed it thrice with bloodred wax impressed with the _Sigil Malfoy_.

"Gavin," he said, upholding the letter.

Goyle bumbled over to stand waiting expectantly, like a faithful and deeply inbred hound.

Lucius enunciated clearly, "Take this to the Owlery and send it to Malfoy Manor. Vic," he clipped, "go with him and make sure he doesn't lose his way."

Crabbe obediently joined his fellow lump and together they set off upon their errand. Lucius was unfortunately reminded of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Still, they were _Upright and Obeying Orders_, which was far more than could be said for Snape: the gangly Prefect was outsprawled across his bed, chest heaving as he gasped for air, crickety limbs at all angles, and yards and yards of black schoolcloak overflowing onto the floor.

"Welcome back," Lucius said drily. "And whose hallucinatory fever-dream will we be inhabiting _this_ time?"

There was quite a long pause, during which there was a small conflagration amidst the folds of Sev's extensively fireproofed cloak. Soon after, what might actually be a Combustible Canary struggled free of the swaddling cloth, and perched itself chirruping upon Snape's shoulder.

Malfoy waited for _Some Plausible Explanation_.

Snape continued panting for some time, and eventually covered his face with his hands, which traditionally meant that he was just about ready to tear his hair out by the roots but naturally couldn't bring himself to touch all that greasy mess.

The burning bird hopped onto his hands, but Sev seemed to take no notice of this; presumably his hands were so blistered and wealed from hours spent in the Student Potions Laboratory that the creature's fiery footprints were merely insult added to injury.

The bird preened itself a bit, and then as if struck by a sudden thought, it dipped its head down and commenced cheeping softly, almost as if it were whispering some secret through Snape's fingers.

At last, the slightly singed swot sat up. The bird, now burning brightly, fluttered up onto his shoulder again. Snape looked at Malfoy, and sighed resignedly, "Welcome to my nightmare."

"You're quite sure," Lucius pressed. "Only if it's my _Grand Delusion_, I'd like to make certain that things go rather better for me overall."

"Ohh, no, this one's all mine," spat Snape. "All this is undoubtedly the result of a mercy dash from the dungeons to the top of the Astronomy Tower, followed by some full mettle Alchemy, after which ensued a lively race down to the Main Gates, interrupted by a spot of trouble during which I was mauled by an enraged hippogriff, before I managed to disapparate to the Orkneys." He looked cross and exhausted, as if he were about to launch yet another epic tantrum. "Really, it's been a very full evening," he sulked, and determinedly keeled over again.

The bright little bird hopped onto his chest and started to sing, cheerfully.

When it finally paused to draw breath, Lucius inquired lightly, "And... where does the Blazing Budgerigar fit into all of this?"

"It followed me home and I think I have to keep it," sighed Snape. "And now if you'll excuse me, Luke, I'd like to have some Ophelian hysterics, just for a little while."

Malfoy blinked at him.

And then hastily gathered up some spellbooks, with the breezy proclamation, "I'll just go and visit Narcissa for awhile— "

Snape started _That Unbecoming Laughter_ which sounded unmistakably like **_The Hinges Tearing Loose For Good And All_**. Lucius, realizing that no one would notice or care, actually fled the room.

_That Unhappy Laughter_ rang around him as he hastened down the spiraling stairs towards the Slytherin Common Room, and he thought with a shiver that it was going to be **_A Very Long School Year_**...


	2. Chapter 2

**rabbit: (confiscating Jinx's copy of _Constantine)_ _"Stop that, you're scaring the children. They'll all have nightmares."_**

**Jinx: (steeples fingers and grins): _"Yay!"_**

Interregnum

Chapter 2

Lucius Malfoy found himself _Utterly Unable_ to fall asleep.

After an hour or so of tossing and turning, he found himself clinging to his twisted, silken sheets and a theory: _All this appalling wakefulness might be due to my current existence within a fever-dream. **After all, you can't fall asleep when you're already asleep, can you!**_

After ten minutes' more consideration of this possibility, Lucius was grinding his teeth and absolutely certain that since this was actually Sev's demented dream, there was **_No Good Reason Whatsoever_** why everyone else shouldn't be able to _Get Some Sleep_.

Malfoy bundled himself into an extremely fluffy, black bathrobe and matching slippers, all Morriswrought with hand-embroidered dragons. After a few tries, he found his way out of his very expensive bedcurtains and waded out of their trailing velvet folds. He shook out his white-gold hair and sleeked it back afresh, before restraining it once more within a ribbon of black silk. Imperiously lifting his pointed chin, he strode across the room to Snape's bed, whence a flickering light could be glimpsed through the gaps in the dusty and somewhat mothgnawed curtains.

**(No. It's not that sort of dream.— rabbit)**

Lucius hauled back the drapery and was confronted by a wall of books.

Presumably in reaction to their looming O.W.L.S., Sev had gone squirrelly and gathered all the tomes he could find and made himself a snug den wherein he could hide away until the winds changed.

Lucius paced around the bed, searching for a sufficiently large gap in all that formidable knowledge. Eventually he found a crawlspace, which Sev must use during trips to the washroom. Frowning, Malfoy wormed his way carefully through the bricklaid tomes until, tousled and somewhat agitated, he found himself kneeling amidst rumpled quilts in what seemed a very small space almost completely filled by an outsprawled and black-pyjama'd Severus Snape, who had his overlarge nose buried in a book.

**(No, it really ISN'T that sort of dream. -- Jinx)**

Sev was reading by the light of the Blazing Budgerigar, which was preening itself upon his shoulder.

Lucius glared at the bird, and demanded testily, "Why doesn't it ignite your hair?"

Sev mumbled absently around the quill clenched in his teeth, "It would never do me any harm." He frowned at his book, shook his head crossly, and made an impatient notation in the margins of the text.

Lucius glared around at the forbidding assemblage of facts surrounding them, and shivered with a sudden and unpleasant sense of occupying a dim, padded cell. He said slowly, "I know your clothing and personal effects are fireproofed... but what about all these books?" He added more sharply, "I inquire only because _that bird's blazing_."

Sev shrugged dismissively and muttered, "If they can't withstand the harsh light of Truth, they're no real loss."

The bird chirruped emphatically, and winked at Lucius.

Malfoy pointedly ignored this and said lightly through bared teeth, "I thought you hated animals."

"**_I do._**" Snape looked suddenly furious, and frankly demented. Malfoy wished dearly that they weren't in such close and nigh-inescapable quarters as Sev spat venomously, **_"I utterly dislike sheep, I eschew three-headed dogs, and I'm now thoroughly convinced that the only good thing about hippogriffs is that they may be served with either a red or a white wine if unexpected company calls."_**

After a very long silence, Malfoy ventured, "So why keep the _Burbling Briquette_ with you, night and day?"

"It's the only friend I've got," sighed Snape.

This was inarguable.

And now Sev was looking as bleak as a seashore in January, and gloomily gathering more books onto the stack at his elbow, with the methodical impulsiveness of a chipmunk collecting seeds.

The bird began singing, with all the vigor and truehearted optimism of a plucky, red-haired orphan perched on FDR's desk.

No one was going to get any sleep if this continued and Lucius veritably shouted in protest, "_Don't be silly, Sev! **We're** your friends!_"

The ensuing gelid silence was interrupted only by a cricket's conscientious chirruping somewhere high amid the rafters. The bird and Snape both stared at Lucius, with inscrutable shoebutton eyes.

Malfoy breezed on with a cocktail party host's _Gracious and Attentive Interest_, "So! Does your incendiary little intimate have a name?"

"Lucky Strike," answered Snape dryly.

Malfoy's brilliant smile slipped.

This was **_A Bad Sign_**. Sev never named his ingredients.

There was another chill silence, interrupted at last by the bird's cheeping and the skritching of Snape's quill.

Lucius ventured a bit frantically, "Look, maybe all this is _my_ fever-dream! I might have, you know, been overcome by fumes from one of your... more elaborate experiments, and for all we know I'm lying unconscious in the Hospital Wing!"

"No," Snape informed him leadenly. He peered through tangles of greasy hair at Lucius and explained glibly, "You are currently hidden away in Azkaban, keeping your bleached-blond head down and praying it'll stay atop your shoulders, since you were foolish enough to try disposing of evidence whilst attempting get even with Arthur Weasley... and so ineptly caused the destruction of a piece of the Dark Lord's very soul."

Snape drew breath only to add, "Narcissa's hysterical, of course, tediously so... and Draco is an ungrateful brat who's got a promising future as a human shield."

He bared his teeth in something that was not really a smile, and opined, "All this while we've suspected that the family name **_Malfoy_** hinted at a certain... tendency, shared by your kin, to disregard all others whilst striving with predatory tenacity for success." Snape chuckled like a clogged brook, and shook his head, pronouncing, "Now we all know it's a warning that your family can't be trusted with the _least_ little thing."

"_Your_ family tree's rotting in the middle of a miasmatic swamp," Lucius sniped, "in case you've forgotten. And God only knows what's tangled in the branches."

Snape glared at him, and abruptly grabbed a small, battered book and stashed it inside his pyjama shirt as he snapped, "At least _my_ family tree doesn't epitomize the delicate culmination of bored socialites' fussy little efforts in topiary self-expression."

Lucius stared at him, all that long and illustrious way down his fine, patrician nose.

The book Sev had hidden beneath his shirt tumbled onto the bedcovers. Snape grabbed it and concealed it behind his back, grumbling under his breath as he snugged it into the waistband of his trousers.

Lucius inquired lightly of the **_Disheveled Wretch_**, "I don't suppose it bothers you in the least that you're _Raving._"

"Not here, no," Snape answered tightly. "That's the whole point exactly. It's only what one should expect during forced recovery from a hippogriff attack." He shuddered, then smiled abruptly with only half of his mouth as he realized, "Now, that's something I have in common with Draco... which might actually give us a talking point, if he doesn't just flee screaming when next he sees me..."

Lucius, who was considering fleeing screaming himself if Sev didn't start making an ounce of sense sometime soon, demanded, "Exactly how long will this nonsense go on?"

"Oh, I'm sure it'll seem just _endless_," sighed Snape. "Our little misadventures always do, when I'm drugged right out of my mind and all and sundry are dragged along for the trip."

"Delightful," opined Lucius, so dryly the syllables risked ignition by the burbling bird.

The book Sev had concealed fell onto the bedcovers. He grabbed for it but Lucius was closer, and snatched it up.

"_Advanced Potion-Making_," Malfoy read from the cover. "Didn't you outgrow this text years ago?"

Snape strangled out, "It has sentimental value."

"Oh, yes... I gave it to you when we were First Years, and we needed some Disingenuous Distillation to complete a project," Lucius reminisced, and frowned. "I still wonder sometimes whether all those test doses we slipped into Pettigrew's pumpkin juice hadn't some unexpectedly lasting effect." He shrugged that off as _Someone Else's Problem_ and opened the book to its title page, which he had neatly inscribed:_ Remember to use your powers for good— but what good are unused powers?_

Malfoy chuckled fondly. "If this book could talk... "

Snape went chalky and grabbed the text. He could not quite keep ahold of it somehow and Malfoy yanked it back beyond the pallid swot's reach, holding it over his head and asking bewilderedly, "What's got into you?"

"About a pint of Wrings-It-Out-of-You Remedy," groaned Snape, who was staring appalled at the tattered text. He jumped as if pinstuck and yipped, "I feel all at odds and so I was checking my notes on that brew, Luke, I really need that book back now," he insisted urgently.

Malfoy, wary that this night could get _Even Worse_, flipped through the pages until he found the receipt. Snape's handwriting all but obscured the printed words, like kudzu veritably overwhelming less ambitious flora. "What's all this nonsense about a Half-Blood Prince?" he wondered. "And why are you taking that into account," he asked more slowly, "in your modifications of the ingredients list?"

"I'm anemic. I'd really like that book back now, Luke."

Malfoy recommenced flipping through the pages, starting to snigger derisively as he discovered more of these _Delusions of Respectability_. He murmured interestedly, "So this is what goes on inside that greasy head of yours. What a peculiarly warped sense of entitlement you've cultivated." He just had to laugh. "_What on Earth_ would **_you_** be a prince of?"

"Bloody darkness," clipped Snape, and swiped the book back. He looked furious.

Lucius only laughed again, as at a puppy trying to undo a bootlace. "You really are thoroughly delusional."

"Hence our otherwise inexplicable presence here," Snape growled impatiently.

"Oh, right, yes, which brings us back to the purpose of my little visit to your _Cozy Bed_," said Malfoy keenly.

**(No, it STILL isn't THAT kind of dream. - rabbit and Jinx.)**

"I don't seem to be able to sleep," Lucius explained tightly. "I suspect you're the cause of this."

Sev gazed at him guardedly.

Lucius went on, "I was wondering what we might do to ameliorate our situation."

**(Look, we can't help it, when Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape wind up in bed together, they just talk like this, okay? -rabbit and Jinx, splashing Godiva Liqueur over half-pint helpings of raspberry sorbet.)**

Lucius sighed, "Since this is your fever-dream, it seems I can't rest while you're wakeful. I wondered if you might have any useful suggestions to resolve this dilemma?"

Snape murmured abstractedly, "Well, there are quite a number of varying factors influencing my predicament, but really there's nothing to be done until the potion completes its work." He shook his head, a bit dazedly. "Really, no one should ever take a dose that strong, but there's just _No Time_ for anything subtler-"

"Oh, leave off, you're beginning to _Italicize_," Lucius interrupted impatiently. He suggested keenly, "I don't suppose you'd have the grace to simply faint."

"I've already done that, that's why we're here," Sev explained testily.

"So you're lying senseless somewhere, and I can't sleep 'til you wake up."

"That's one way to look at it," Sev allowed.

Malfoy thought this over carefully and asked, "What if you were to... fall into a deeper sleep?"

"I'd be in a coma."

Lucius brightened, declaring, "You were in a coma last time, and everyone got enough sleep."

"And more than enough _sheep_. Yes, I remember."

Malfoy let this marvel pass unremarked, instead seizing the battered potions textbook. He looked steadily into the Blazing Budgie's beady little eyes, intoning, "This is for our own good." As the bird ducked, he hauled off and smote Snape right across the forehead with the much-abused tome.

Sev keeled over obligingly.

The _Incandescent Irritation_ started to sing again, all the while scribing vivid spirals as it circled anxiously above Snape's bestilled form.

"Good night, Sev," Lucius said conclusively, and pried the book free of Snape's hair so that the deranged swot might be comfortable enough to sleep 'til dawn.

Malfoy crawled out of the overcrowded bed with some difficulty, and strode back to his own lushly appointed four-poster as if nothing untoward had happened. Looking forward to the commencement of classes on the morrow, he snuggled back into his silken sheets and hugged his overfluffed pillow close, and settled thus to _The Sleep of the Just and the Righteous._


End file.
